Yahoo – AFP,
12 Sep 2014
 |
According
to a negotiated plea bargain, executives in an HP Russia subsidiary
created a
multi-million-dollar slush fund, from which money was used to bribe Russian
officials who awarded the company a $45 million contract (AFP Photo/Brendan
Smialowski)
|
San
Francisco (AFP) - A judge on Thursday ordered US computer giant Hewlett-Packard
to pay $58.8 million for bribing Moscow government officials to win a big-money
contract with Russia's prosecutor general's office.
Northern
California US District Judge Lowell Jensen hit HP with the fine after the
company pleaded guilty to violating anti-bribery and accounting provisions of
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the US Department of Justice said in a
release.
According
to a negotiated plea bargain, executives in an HP Russia subsidiary created a
multi-million-dollar slush fund, from which money was used to bribe Russian
officials who awarded the company a $45 million (35 million euro) contract with
the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia.
 |
A judge
orders US computer giant Hewlett-
Packard to pay $58.8 million for bribing
Russian government officials to win a big-
money contract with the prosecutor
general's office in that nation (AFP Photo/
Hector Mata)
|
"Even
more troubling was that the government contract up for sale was with Russia's
top prosecutor's office," he said.
Bribes in
Russia, Poland, Mexico
The plea
deal came as part of an agreement by HP in April to pay a total of $108 million
to settle investigations that it paid bribes to win public contracts in Russia,
Poland and Mexico.
The
settlement covers criminal and civil investigations under the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act, according to a statement from the US Securities and Exchange
Commission.
According
to authorities, the California company's subsidiary in Russia paid more than $2
million in bribes through agents and various shell companies, using two sets of
books and secret spreadsheets to keep track of affairs.
"For
more than a decade HP Russia business executives participated in an elaborate
scheme that involved paying bribes to government officials in exchange for
large contracts," FBI Washington field office assistant director-in-charge
Andrew McCabe said in a release.
In Poland,
gifts and cash bribes worth more than $600,000 were paid to a Polish government
official to obtain contracts with the national police agency.
And in
Mexico, HP paid more than $1 million in commissions to a consultant to win a
software sale to Mexico's state-owned petroleum company Pemex, and some of that
money was funneled to a company official.
SEC
investigators in April said HP lacked internal controls and allowed the bribes
to be recorded "as legitimate commissions and expenses."
According
to US officials, the bribes in Mexico were paid from 2008 to 2009, in Poland
from 2006 to 2010 and in Russia from 2000 to 2007.
HP
acknowledged the settlement in a separate statement in April and noted that it
calls for "certain compliance, reporting and cooperation
obligations."
"The
misconduct described in the settlement was limited to a small number of people
who are no longer employed by the company," said John Schultz, executive
vice president and general counsel for the company.
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